It's a word that has no doubt become quite familiar to school board members across Berks County as they look to shed expenses.

And the No. 1 expense for a school district? Personnel.

Cutting staff is a tough choice, but one many Berks school districts have faced. In all, 15 districts have said they will trim their ranks for the 2012-13 year.

Because cutting jobs has a big impact on people's lives, attrition has become the preferred method.

"If you're in a situation where cuts have to be made, that's the least painful way to make them," said David Broderic, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state teachers union.

Outside of the Reading School District, where as many as 364 employees could be axed, only about 30 school employees across Berks will lose their jobs through furloughs next school year.

Instead of handing out pink slips, most districts are simply not replacing employees who have retired or resigned.

Pretty much any time a public education employee leaves a job these days, districts take a close look at whether the employee needs to be replaced.

Exeter is planning to eliminate eight teaching positions in its 2012-13 budget, Martin said. All will be cut through attrition.

There are similar stories across Berks.

Fleetwood plans to cut 10 positions, seven through attrition. Wilson is proposing to decrease its staff by 37, all through attrition. And Hamburg expects to lose three teaching jobs through attrition.

"We definitely look at every position which opens because of resignation or retirement and do an analysis," said Steven P. Keifer, Hamburg superintendent.

Dr. Rudy Ruth, Wilson superintendent, said some of those positions may have been filled in the past, when financial forecasts were brighter. But in today's climate, districts are being forced to leave positions empty and find new ways to do things.

"We're finding other ways to do good work, but do it with less," Ruth said. "It really is about doing more with less."

That has meant more challenges for teachers and other staff.

"Jobs are more demanding because of adding responsibilities," Keifer said. "Some class sizes are inching up."

And no matter how hard you work to compensate, Broderic said, it's impossible to completely make up for the losses.

"Even when you eliminate positions through attrition, you're still eliminating teachers in the classroom," he said. "And that means that something students had last year they're not getting this year."

The only way to stem the tide of staff cuts, Broderic said, is to address funding issues head-on at the state level, overturning the governor's proposed slashes.

"Pennsylvania is in nothing short of a school funding crisis," he said. "And it's impacting students. It's impacting student learning.

"There's tough choices to make, and a lot more work to be done to restore these cuts."

Stimulus to blame

But Timothy Eller, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said state funding isn't the issue. Gov. Tom Corbett's administration, he said, has actually increased education funding across the state by more than $828 million in his first two budgets.

The problem, Eller said, is that federal stimulus money that was passed through the state to local schools has dried up.

"As expected, this funding is gone," he said. "Although many school districts did not use this one-time revenue for long-term expenses, there are many that did. They are now expecting the state to make up for the loss of federal dollars."

Eller also said that in the past decade the number of school-age children in the state has dropped by 5 percent, while the number of professional school employees increased by about 10 percent.

Admitting that times are tough, Eller said school districts that are struggling simply need to find ways to work with what they have.

"Like families, businesses and state government has done, school districts must live within their means," he said.